hildren on his back, and flew away with them over land and sea;
but poor Helle let go in passing the narrow strait between Asia and
Europe, fell into the sea, and was drowned. The strait was called after
her, the Hellespont, or Helle's Sea. Phryxus came safely to Colchis, on
the Black Sea, and was kindly received by AEetes, the king of the
country. They sacrificed the golden-woolled ram to Jupiter, and nailed
up its fleece to a tree in the grove of Mars.

Some time after, Pelias, the usurping king of Iolcus, was driving a
mule-car through the market-place, when he saw a fine young man, with
hair flowing on his shoulders, two spears in his hand, and only one
sandal. He was very much afraid, for it had been foretold to him by an
oracle that he would be slain by the man with one foot bare. And this
youth was really Jason, the son of his brother AEson, from whom he had
taken the kingdom. Fearing that he would kill the child, AEson had sent
it away to the cave of the Centaur Chiron, by whom Jason had been bred
up, and had now come to seek his fortune. He had lost his shoe in the
mud, while kindly carrying an old woman across a river, little knowing
that she was really the goddess Juno, who had come down in that form to
make trial of the kindness of men, and who was thus made his friend for
ever. Pelias sent for the young stranger the next day, and asked him
what he would do if he knew who was the man fated to kill him. "I should
send him to fetch the Golden Fleece," said Jason.

"Then go and fetch it," said Pelias.

Jason thereupon began building a ship, which he called Argo, and
proclaimed the intended expedition throughout Greece, thus gathering
together all the most famous heroes then living, most of whom had, like
him, been brought up by the great Centaur Chiron. Hercules was one of
them, and another was Theseus, the great hero of the Ionian city of
Athens, whose prowess was almost equal to that of Hercules. He had
caught and killed the great white bull which Hercules had brought from
Crete and let loose, and he had also destroyed the horrid robber
Procrustes (the Stretcher), who had kept two iron bedsteads, one long and
one short. He put tall men into the short bed, and cut them down to fit
it, and short men into the long bed, pulling them out till they died,
until Theseus finished his life on one of his own beds.

[Picture: Building the Argo]

Another deed of Theseus was in Crete.